February 11, 2010

Super Freak

 
I heard your afraid of dogs?
You did?  Uhhh, no.  I like dogs, one day I’ll have a crazed attack English bulldog…

Who’s you're favorite porn star?
Well, that’s a very subjective question, hmmm…   Kimberly Kane and Asa Akira, but there are lots of really neat girls out there…

Are there any dreams or goals that you have yet to fulfill? 
I’d be happy at this point just to get caught up on customer orders, been having foundry issues all last year but I have a ton of raw stuff to machine right now so I’m happy.  Dreams?  Yeah I’d just as well be doin vintage aircraft restoration stuff, but who knows…

Is it true what they say, 'It always runs best right before it blows?'
YES!!!  Nelson and I were coming back from Sugar bear’s birthday party, it was rad, we got stuck at a light and were behind everyone, we were running 110 plus, him on his fxr and me on my evo street tracker all the way to Dustin’s pad to watch fights. Bike was running like a fuckin top, hauling ass with power to spare. We watch the fights and I go to leave and immediately dropped a front intake valve, bending a pushrod and wasting a valve.  Sucks, but now I am rebuilding the bike with a turbo, a 80 inch magneto driven turbo evo, dumb, but it’s gonna rule.  Shooting for a decent 150-155 hp with it.

Whats your favorite place to ride?...and you do not need to answer this with a Swiss Alps thing, I mean, do you have a place you ride to that makes you happy?..A daily route so to say?
Well, I just like riding, I haven’t been riding as much lately, so every time I get on a motorcycle right now I’m pretty fuckin stoked, I don’t give a shit where I’m going.  But damn, riding the Dolomites with two of my very best friends was pretty fuckin epic

 
What the fuck is going on in Cali?
Everything and nothing new, all at the same time.  I’m a fuckin hermit most of the time.  I do have a ton of new parts I’m workin on that I am super stoked about.  I am finally running a bunch of Randy Smith’s parts from his original patterns, with the blessing of his family. Bird deflectors and the sweetest part ever the finned rotor cover.  Super stoked about that.  Some springer parts, and finally redoing the taillight I did for my knuckle.  As well as takin on some neat custom parts for people.  Pretty excited about it, you will finally see some new stuff from me soon.

After a full day at the shop, do you take a shower before crawling into bed with your sweet?
Uhhh, if I have the energy, I’m generally a morning shower-er, unless I’m super dirty, like most of the time.

Whats the story behind the 'Poop Van'?
You mean when I took a shit in the back of my van in an oil can box coz there was no bathroom anywhere?  I don’t know what you are talking about.

When no-bodys around do you play air guitar?
No, but since my hair is getting long I do lots of headbanging when no one is looking.

Out of all the bikes you have built, do you have a favorite?
Well, I like different bikes for different reasons.  My knuckle coz everybody told me it wouldn’t run the way I was doing the two front heads and making my own tappet block from scratch.  My pan coz it does killer wheelies.  The X-Wedge coz it’s a fuckin monster and I’m super stoked on the cast gas tank.  I’ll be stoked when I finish my current rebuild of the street tracker after I dropped a valve… can you say turbo?  I love misc bikes I have done restoration work on in the past, I’d love to be doing more of that these days.

Who gets you stoked in bike building these days?
Jeff Decker coz he cut up a perfectly good Vincent Lightning, Cole foster coz his shit is super simple and I always get mad when I see his new shit and he will do something in such a clean simple way that will always blow my mind.  I just like seeing stuff that really works, I’m over shit that doesn’t work.  Bikes that you just can’t ride anywhere, fuckin bullshit.  People that step away from what everybody is doing and doing something new or in a new way.  Gregg’s Custom’s R1 street tracker, that bike is fuckin ridiculous, probably like riding a TZ750, that bike is sweet as hell. I’m also super stoked with what you are doing with FTWCO, rad.  To be honest, it’s the time I have spent with your fucked up ass that has drastically changed how I look at motorcycle functionality.


If you had not chosen to share your gift bike building, what else would you have done?
I have no idea, everything I do on some level has to do with motorcycles, from parts to writing to takin pix of naked girls, it’s all centered in some way on motorcycles.  I’m always threatening to run away to bag groceries on the north shore…

What’s with the taking pix of naked girls anyway?
Well, I have always liked naked girls, (Duh) and it just kind of came from the fact that I started really takin lot so of pix of cycles. Then, For some reason Claire Adams let me shoot her all naked and bent up like a pretzel with my bikes.  I’ve been doing it as much as I can since then, and I like it!  Just need more girls to shoot…  Taking pictures is the first thing that I have really started doing that I love as much as motorcycles in general, even tho I only seem to shoot girls with bikes or in shops etc. 
It has all led me to do a book, a book not of just chicks and bikes but with a broader focus, I’m super stoked about it, but it’s going to be a bit before I have all the content I want for it.

What’s the best advice anyone's ever given you?
“Build an exhaust system on a bike so you can lift the bike by the pipes.”  – Vic King
“It’s just a motorcycle, it’s not smarter than you.” – Dana Levine

Was it difficult growing up in Canada?
No, but it is cold in Canada.

 
What’s the gnarliest thing you have ever done on a motorcycle?
Ok fucker, one of them was pulling your bike (The Hammer of god, the 100 inch shovel, one of my favorite bikes of all time) off a semi that was a good 6 ft off the ground on a skinny ramp.  Scared the fuck out of me, you ship the bike to me to wire, tune and finish and I was sure I was going to drop it off that skinny fuckin ramp.  It seems that close calls are pretty common riding in LA traffic that they don’t seem that gnarly anymore, unless I step back and think about it.

How about something you dislike in the chopper industry?
I hate the “chopper industry” everyone is so concerned with outdoing the next guy that everyone (95% of em) are building crap, all those high end show bikes, CRAP. All those guys building bikes with the biggest motors ever?  CRAP, why do you need that?  Only a handful of people I know can ride well enough to be able to deal with a powerplant like that and in the chassis everyone is building there is no point.  Even with vintage choppers, and I am just as guilty, it has gotten to a point that you HAVE to use certain parts in your builds that if you don’t, people have a problem with it, no matter that the parts were even pieces of shit when they were made, 35 years ago.  I don’t know, it’s like anything else, it gets popular and it loses its appeal and gets taken over with people that just want to “Cash in”  thanx to our fucked up economy those people are going away. 
But it doesn’t help when I have customers who want my parts and I just can’t get em to them fast enough cos I’m feeling that same shit with the economy.  I don’t know.  I just love motorcycles, period.  Vintage stock ones, custom ones, I try and just focus on what I am doing and I have been super lucky that people seem to like the stuff I do, so, I’ll just shut up now.


Would you go to a Church of Choppers?
Only if we get live sacrifices and you are the pastor, and Fatty is the altar boy.

 
Thanks Dave! Go here for more.

9 comments:

Boonie said...

Nice...both of you

Milo said...

stoked.

IMT Transport said...

my driver expected you to see you walk on water after watching you roll the bike down that skinny ass ramp

"Daddyfrisco" Ray said...

dave's hair is too beautiful..

howard kelly said...

remind me to not ride in Dave's van...

blukollar said...

Chopper Dave's an inspiration

christiano said...

Gotta love this interview....the love of the motorcycle

trevelen said...

Daveyando is helpful.

Kruger Customs said...

nice! thanks.